Ignite the Change – Dyslexia – Call to Action

It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires in the minds of men. — Samuel Adams

The last few months have seen tremendous progress in Dyslexia-Specific Legislation, but of course we need much more. We are grateful to Earl Oremus for his impassioned support of Dyslexic Advantage’s Dyslexia at School Survey in the current issue of the International Dyslexia Association Examiner.

Excerpt: “If enough parents complete the online Dyslexia-at-School Survey, the data it produces could be a game changer in national-, state-, and district-level struggles to improve reading instruction for students with dyslexia. The survey was produced by Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide, co-founders of Dyslexic Advantage, a 501(c)(3) dyslexia education and advocacy organization, and it was published on their organization’s website. “The goal of the survey,” Fernette Eide explained, “is to provide parents with a simple way to document the challenges they face when trying to obtain effective instruction for children with dyslexia through the special education system. We’re excited because we saw how important that survey data could be in getting dyslexia legislation signed in California.”

With millions of families struggling with the problem, this survey has the potential to produce an archive of tens or even hundreds of thousands of individual case histories that authentically document the dysfunction of the system on a child-by-child basis. When aggregated into a database, the responses can be analyzed to identify clear patterns of strengths and deficiencies in the system as a whole, and responses can even be used for state-to-state comparisons as well.” To read the rest of his call to action click HERE.

Sharing your children’s experiences is the ONLY way to overcome the various interest groups who tell lawmakers that “no problems” exist for dyslexic students in US public schools. We need personal stories, but we also need as many people as possible to take the survey. Please SHARE it with anyone and everyone you can think of – whether neighbors, teachers, tutors, principals, specialists and non-profit leaders, and mom’s groups. The direct link to the survey is: http://bit.ly/dyslexia-school

For those who would like an audio version of survey, send an email to: team @ dyslexicadvantage.org

We’re also grateful to the thousands of people who have already filled out our survey and those of you who have been working so tirelessly for change at local and national levels. We’d also like to give a shout-out to just a few of the other incredible dyslexia / LD organizations that have helped make point in our history possible: Decoding Dyslexia, International Dyslexia Association, Learning Ally, National Center for Learning Disabilities / Understood, Yale Center for Creativity and Dyslexia. We are also grateful to many individuals like Susan Barton and Kyle Redford who have been leaders in galvanizing the community.

We will be closing the survey April 15th, so please take it (if you haven’t already) as soon as you can. Deep Thanks – we’ll be sharing all the results with you once the analyiss is complete.